Institutional Repository FAQ
What does IR stand for?
What does the IR do?
- It preserves research by Georgetown's faculty
- It provides access to this research worldwide—even to those who don’t have subscriptions to expensive journals.
- By exposing research at GU (through Google scholar and other search engines), it raises the profile of the University, and the individual researcher.
What does the IR contain?
It contains mostly previously published material produced by Georgetown researchers, and includes various types and formats. Examples are:
- Journal articles
- Working papers
- Conference papers
- Theses and Dissertations
- Datasets
- Images
Is my material appropriate for the IR?
The Library staff does not have the expertise to assess the academic quality of materials in the IR. Hence you are free to submit any content which you think appropriate, and which does not violate any laws or local policies. Bear in mind, though, that the materials will be visible to a worldwide audience, and should enhance your own reputation, and that of your department.
How can I contribute my material?
Please use the online submission formto upload your files. During the submission process, you will be asked to review our license, and indicate your consent to its terms.
Alternatively, you may send your files via email to dginfo@georgetown.edu. In this case, you must also complete a license form, and send it to the Copyright Department, Lauinger Library.
Who owns rights to materials in the IR?
The authors, or the publishers to whom authors have assigned their rights. When you deposit materials in the IR, you simply grant the University a license to distribute the materials, without a transfer of rights.
How soon will my material become available?
You can track the progress of your submission by logging on to the submissions page.
The processing time depends on the type of the material. For all published articles, we have to conduct a rights review to ascertain that your publisher allows us to redistribute it freely (see Sherpa / RoMEO http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/). Publisher policies vary, but sadly, many publishers have very restrictive rules, and we may not be able to re-publish your article at all.
You can help us by selecting publishers with liberal IR policies (Sherpa / RoMEO http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/ “Green” publishers), or by using an addendum (http://scholars.sciencecommons.org/) to your author agreements.
How are theses deposited?
Students submit their theses to ProQuest, a commercial vendor, who maintain a database of theses on behalf of the graduate school. ProQuest retains a copy, and send a duplicate to the Library, where the files are deposited in the IR. Files are loaded periodically, but there may be a time lag before a thesis becomes available online.
Why do you distribute my thesis freely?
Theses are traditionally considered published documents, and therefore publicly accessible. When submitting your thesis, you were asked to sign a license agreement which gives the University the right to display and distribute your thesis worldwide.
In exceptional circumstances, you may apply to the Graduate School to have your thesis embargoed for a set period of time.
